Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in allaboutmymom's LiveJournal:

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Monday, July 23rd, 2007
10:00 am	Mother Standard Time Although to the casual observer, it might seem that my mother and I reside in the same time zone. I am in Maryland, she is in Florida . This is incorrect however, because I live in what can only be described as Daughter Standard Time while she lives in Mother Standard Time. The time difference is roughly 3 hours. My mother's 9am is my 6am, and that is when my mother likes to call. In my sleep addled state, my first instinct is to answer the phone when it rings early in the morning. I imagine any phone call coming at such an indecent hour can only be an emergency. It's always my mother, calling to complain about something inane that has her in a fury. I fumble for the volume setting on the phone, not wanting my mother's top volume rant to wake up my sleeping partner (who also lives in my time zone), but the volume is already as low as it goes and it sounds like my mother is in bed with us. I mumble several "mmhmms" in response to my mother's angst. When she exasperatedly accuses me of not listening I tell her I am trying but it's hard muster enthusiastic responses when I'm sort of still half asleep, especially when I am listening to the same rant I heard 2 days ago. It's not that I am unsympathetic, it's just that this isn't a real crisis and I am tired. "Now you tell me something" she says. She wants me to entertain her with exciting tales from my life, but I have none. "You're young, you should be out doing wild things and be full of stories," she tells me. I am young, relatively speaking, but I am not 19. I am well into adulthood at this point, and practically married, so my stories are pretty tame and uninteresting. This is not to say that I am unhappy, it's just that what makes me happy at this point in my life is spending the weekend lounging around my bed with my partner making fun of trashy television and playing with our cats. That's just not much of a story. "What are your friends up to?" she asks, hoping I might keep exciting company. Alas, I do not. My friends are also all pretty much grown up and married or cohabitating and spend their time on similarly unthrilling pursuits. My mother always wants to know what we do when we get together, the truth is usually not much. Maybe see a band or cook a meal or have drinks or play scrabble, but is all that really even worth reporting on? I am not sure what she expects me to tell her. We did not spend the weekend wrestling cheetahs or hotrodding through the desert. Perhaps that is the sort of excitement my mother was hoping to hear about. Maybe I should get better at making things up. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
12:07 pm	Hush The crazy in my family is far from limited to my mother. They're all pretty nuts. Maybe I am nuts too and I just don't notice it. I wonder if your ability to notice how insane other people are has anything to do with your own level of crazy. Maybe not since my mother seems to be aware that her family is crazy and she is pretty weird. Any way, today my mother called and said "I do not want you to have any further contact with my brother." "What is the problem?" I asked. "As you know, my siblings do not like me. This extends to my children as well." "ok..." My mother has a brother and a sister. She has not spoken to either of them in years. The brother and sister apparently also do not speak to each other. So no one speaks to any one except grandma. Grandma is bored and lonely and likes attention so her hobby is making drama in the family. Here is what I suspect happened: I was in NYC a couple of months ago and saw my uncle. My uncle spoke to granny and probably said something about me that she twisted and repeated to my mother. Maybe my uncle said my sense of humor is sarcastic or something like that and granny told my mother "your brother says your daughter is an ascerbic bitch." I am just guessing here based on what I know about my grandmother and my uncle. Really I have no idea what was actually said by any one. I reminded my mother that my grandmother isn't really a reliable source for this sort of thing to which my mother replied "well I don't want to deal with any of it so you just respect my wishes and have no further contact with my relatives." It's not like I am close with my aunt or uncle so this isn't going to be a tough request to fulfill. I also have nothing against them so I find all of this unnecessary. I know it's kind of a terrible thing to say but I wonder if relations with my mother and her siblings will improve after my grandmother is no longer around. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
5:17 pm	Internet Dating for All! My grandmother drives my mother crazy. She's decided to distract my grandmother from her constant nagging for attention with internet dating. Apparently my mother had trouble creating an account for grandma on the dating website and had to call tech support. "I spoke to a very nice young man on the phone," she said. "He's single. Maybe I can fix him up with Rachel." I mentioned my mother's fixation on my friend Rachel several entries ago. The woman will not rest until Rachel finds a husband. In other news, my mother is not the only crazy person in my family. My 26 year old brother has been having an internet relationship with a girl in Ohio. She is the heir to a fortune her parents made inventing a famous product you've all heard of (since this blog is sort of public I won't say which). My brother has decided he is in love with this girl and she is going to move in with him. Here's the kicker, they have yet to meet in real life. They meet on move in day. When my mother told me this I said, "Is he crazy? She could be fat... or um something else unappealing." "I don't think your brother is that shallow," my mother said. He IS a man, mom. Besides, have you seen the parade of wanna-be strippers and porn stars he's dated? He is definitely that shallow. The only way this could get any better is if my brother brought a video camera along and sold this trainwreck-in-the-making to MTV. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
2:53 pm	Robocake This summer is my 30th birthday. I guess this is a big deal. My mother wants to come visit for it and help my boyfriend plan a party for me. This would be fine if any of what I wanted was of interest to my mother, but clearly it is not. You see, for my birthday I wanted one thing, a robot birthday cake. There's a really fancy bakery in my city that can make a cool robot cake but it would be pricey for a cake. To some people (like my mother) an expensive cake seems like a waste of money, but it's not their birthday, it is mine and this is what I want. What does my mother want for my birthday? A caterer, flowers, party decorations and a sheet cake. I'm not interested in the flowers or decorations. It's just mess for me to clean up later since this party is going to be at my house. I am hesitant to pay a caterer since most caterers dabble in vegan cooking at best and I've been doing it every day for about 10 years now. Why pay some one to do something I can do a much better job of myself? As for the sheet cake, I can make a sheet cake myself. Why would I want any one to pay a bakery for a sheet cake? I suspect I could even make a robot cake myself but I thought it would be cool to have one made for me. Flowers, party decorations, a caterer and a sheet cake are probably all going to cost as much as a robot cake so can't I just have what I actually want? Apparently not. My mother made reference (on the phone with my boyfriend) to having already spent $1000 on a present for me. It if it's a diamond I am going to have a breakdown. It is not possible that my mother thinks an expensive cake is a bigger waste of money than I think a diamond is. I do not like jewelry and I almost never wear any. I especially do not like supporting industry that is explotative of humans and the environment. Maybe my mother would like to club a baby seal for my birthday and call it a day? My birthdays tend to be awful. I've had a lot of really miserable ones and my mother's been the cause of it more often than not. Whether it's starting a fight with me, grounding me when I was a teenager, making attempts to throw elaborate over the top bashes I hated when I was a child, it's always been something. My 6th and 8th birthdays were especially stand out. For birthday six my mother threw a hayride birthday. I hate nature, bugs, horses and I'm allergic to most of these things any way. The party was smelly and I spent the day itchy, sneezy and miserable. At some point my pants got soaked and I had to spend half the party pantsless. For my 8th birthday my mother threw a party for me at a nightclub which supposedly had kids' shows during the day with puppets and such. Apparently this was only on certain days and the day of my party was not one of them. We got treated to a burlesque show instead. A lot of children were not allowed to play with me any more after that incident. My birthday is still about 3 months away and already I wish it was over. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
12:31 pm	Baby Fever I have never had baby fever. Maybe there's something wrong with me. I have given it a lot of thought and I genuinely do not want to be a mother. I can never see myself happy that way. That said, I sometimes wish I wanted a child. This isn't the same as wanting one, mind you. A while ago I wrote about a conversation my mother and I had about having kids and my mother said "If you don't have kids what will you do with your stuff" and I said "maybe give it to charity." I think that is a good thing to do with 99% of my stuff. The stuff I'm not so sure about is the stuff I like the most. The stuff that has little if any monetary value but has meaning to me. I have a favorite quilt. It is a quilt my mother made by hand over the course of 25 years. She started working on it when I was a baby and it is a patchwork quilt covered in scraps of my baby clothes, her maternity clothes, things I wore as a child. It's like a fabric scrap book. It's a beautiful quilt, sentiment aside, all of the fabric is vintage and colorful and I've never seen any quilt like it. I hate to imagine that quilt ever winding up in a Goodwill. I guess I better hope for some cool nieces and nephews or a sudden stroke of baby fever. The former seems like a better possibility. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
11:44 am	Twenty-Ten This year I turn twenty-ten. My mother wants to come up to celebrate my birthday and wants to buy me something "commemorative" like a diamond. I don't really care for diamonds, what I want is a Kitchenaid, but I don't think that is what she has in mind. I do not really understand spending a lot of money on jewelry. First of all I do not enjoy jewelry very much, it's uncomfortable and I am likely to lose it. Even if I did like jewelry, I would not really want a ton of it because I can't imagine getting around to wearing it all. My mother has a lot of nice jewelry, I am sure she wears most of it infrequently. She just has a few pieces she loves the most and she wears those. I am likely to inherit all of that and that's already more jewelry than I know what to do with. I advised my mother to just give me something she already has if she wants me to have jewelry. At least that way I do not feel like I am contributing to the vile diamond industry. I think my mother finds it hard to wrap her head around my disinterest in material things. I cannot remember the last time I was asked "what do you want as a gift?" and I was able to come up with a satisfactory answer. I rarely want much of anything or if I do it is something practical like a Ginsu knife or airline miles or sneakers. I hate clutter so I think that is why I rarely want stuff. Any way, my mother isn't just fretting over what to get me for my birthday. She is also worried about her mother who wants to come along to visit. As much as my mother drives me crazy, my grandmother drives my mother about 100 times crazier. My grandmother is actually nuttier than my mother, so much so that she has pretty much driven my aunt and uncle out of her life (which infuriates my mother but I can understand why my aunt and uncle have thrown in the towel). As a result, my mother is the sole caregiver for my grandmother. My grandmother isn't in poor health, she is just loney and bored and unbearable to be around so my mother is pretty much the only other human being in her life. My mother calls almost every day to complain about her mother. "Grandma is turning 80 next year. She wants me to take her to the most expensive restaurant, take her on a shopping spree and take her on vacation to the islands!" "Grandma wants to move in with me. She wants me to build her an apartment on my property -- a living room/bedroom combo and she wants to use MY kitchen!!" "Grandma wants me to take her out 3 times a week. She wants me to take her to dinner and movies and shopping and pay for everything all the time." "Grandma is abusing laxatives AGAIN, and I had to take her to the doctor AGAIN, and he told her to stop AGAIN! I know she is going to start again though." It goes on and on and my mother is completely justified in her frustration with her own mother. The problem is my mother doesn't seem to know what to do about it. She won't cut her mother out, she won't put her foot down when her mother demands unreasonable things. It's like she's just treading water indefinitely and considering my grandmother's outstanding health this could go on for a very long time. My mother and I are of two different minds when it comes to these things. I am all for helping your family but I believe in having limits. My mother seems to think some one is handing out medal's for selfless living and she is going for the gold. (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
5:45 pm	Mircale Slim My mother finally, at the demand of her doctors, joined a gym and hired a trainer. I am thrilled, sort of. The bad news is that she calls almost daily to complain about how it's not making her into a size 2 with the blood pressure of a 19 year old. I know, to her, it seems like going to the gym for two months is like going to the gym for 100 years, and magic and fantastic results should ensue but the thing is that after abusing your body for 50+ years, it might take more than 2 months at the gym to see the results you want. Today she said, "I'm still fat!" "How long have you been working out?" "Since January" "This is the first week of March, that is less than 2 months. You already said your clothing size went down, that is pretty good for 8 weeks. It's going to take a while to get the results you want." "Well my blood pressure is high." "Aren't you on medication for that?" "It's not working and the gym should fix it!" The gym is great, I'm a big fan myself. Unfortunately there are limits to the power of the gym. It can't always cure medical conditions, it can't make you go from a size 16 to a size 2 in 8 weeks. Going to the gym is not like buying a new coffee table, there's no instant gratification. I am sure if it worked that way the gym would be a lot more mobbed than it is now. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 9th, 2006
6:21 pm	Snafu My parents just got themselves a Mercedes Sports Coupe. They already have a couple of cars, but they felt that what they really needed was a leisure vehicle. I am sure it will go nicely with their leisure pepper grinder. I, on the other hand and due to unforseen circumstances, am stuck with a really big financial debacle at the moment. My financial crisis is my parents' pocket change since they make more in a week than small small countries make in a year. So I when I called them to complain/seek advice they were, of course, cavalier about the entire thing. In their minds, a problem that costs tens of thousands of dollars is like having a problem that costs $10 to fix. I am glad they offered to help -- I mean I am really miserable about wanting their help -- but I appreciate that they can help. It's just frustrating to resolve my crisis with a mixture of their dismissiveness and vague disappointment. I've never taken a penny from them before. I shouldn't care since 1. they can afford it 2. they've given my brother tons of money and he's done nothing with it except smoke and or drink it and 3. they haven't given me much of anything ever. I got through school mainly on scholarships and student loans I had to pay back and I bought my own car and my own houses, etc. 4. I don't feel like getting into it, but in a way, they are somewhat to blame for my current predicament. Despite all the rationalizations, it's still really bugging me. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 4th, 2006
5:02 pm	Pepper Mill Luxe My mother left a voice mail the other day saying: "Hello, I just wanted to let you know that I picked up a very nice new pepper mill today. It cost $80.00 so don't sell it for $1 when I die, ok? Actually, I will put it in the book." First of all, who buys an $80 pepper mill? Second of all, am I the only one bothered by the fact that this pepper mill is of greater value to my mother than her housekeepers? I mean it just grinds up pepper, you know? And it doesn't have a family to feed. About the book she made reference to... My mother is creating a book for me that will catalog all of her posessions and their monetary value so that when she dies I won't sell any of her things for $1 at a yard sale. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
8:10 pm	Wal-Mart State of Mind Today my mother called to chat and asked what I'm up to. I told her I am going to have to get a move on with cleaning my house since Thanksgiving is next week and my housekeeper sprained her arm and may not be able to come over to help. (My partner and I are hosting Thanksgiving and having friends come over.) "Oh, how much do you pay your cleaner?" my mother wanted to know. "$20.00 an hour" I replied. "How long does she stay?" "About 5 hours usually" "Oh... I have a much better deal with mine. I have two people that come for 8 hours and that only costs me $80.00." The fact that my mother was gloating about this disturbed me deeply. We are not talking about stumbling upon a Fabrege egg at a yard sale for $5.00 or scoring a used BMW on craigslist for a grand, we are talking about human beings. People who need to pay for food, housing, health care, transportation, etc. Getting them for a bargain doesn't make you a savvy consumer, it makes you a fucking monster. It isn't that my folks can't afford to pay more, they just don't see why they should have to. If they can get people to do exhausting manual labor for less than minimum wage, that's cause to celebrate. They've been spending too much time in Wal-Mart. They don't think about or care about why they can get a package of tube socks for $2.00 and they think this sort of thing should apply to all areas of their consumer life. I can't personally force sweatshops to pay better wages. I can avoid buying their goods when possible and I can most certainly ensure that when people work for me, they are getting a living wage. I don't understand why this doesn't matter to the people who raised me and supposedly were responsible for the formation of my moral fiber. "Mom, that is terrible. That is not even minimum wage and housework is very tiring. I am sure they can't really support themselves on that income. You need to pay them more." "Well we are going to give them a Christmas bonus." "You need to give them a bonus AND a raise, Mom." (and you need to stop shopping in Wal-Mart because it is giving you the conscience of Lee Scott). (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 15th, 2006
7:28 pm	I am holding this against you This past weekend my partner and I spent the weekend in the country with our friends. On Saturday we went to an apple orchard and picked apples to bake pies. The orchard had lots of families visiting and the moms running around with their little ones reminded me of my mother. When I was a kid we'd go to apple orchards every fall and pick apples and make pie and sauce and pick out pumpkins. The sight of all the families enjoying their fall weekend made me mad at my mother because I know we'll never get to do another weekend like that. Not because she lives too far away or would no longer be interested. It's because she's taken such poor care of her body that now she's too out of shape and fragile and sickly to run around an orchard. I am probably supposed to be feeling sorry for my mother and her failing health but instead I'm just feeling resentful that she did this to herself. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006
2:17 pm	The Visit The bad (or good) news is that I do not have any spectacular tales about my parents' visit from last weekend. My mother didn't say anything impressively nasty or offensive. She seemed a bit morose but not obnoxiously so. My partner and I bent over backwards to entertain my family and find things they'd want to eat and take them places they'd want to go. We took them to a museum and lots of popular tourist spots. We choked down an oil saturated dish of sauce soaked veggies at a seafood restaurant. We played valet with the car so my folks wouldn't have to do any more walking than necessary. We were darn good hosts. The most notable impression the visit left me with was that my folks are getting old fast. First of all, the horrible medical problem my mother has had, with the bumps on her face, I saw it. It wasn't as noticable or hideous as she's made it out to be (which I expected) but I could see what she was talking about and I do hope she finds a doctor who can get rid of it. What troubled me more was that she just seemed old. She tired easily, walked slowly, couldn't handle steps. She is in her early 50s but seems to be in the condition of a woman in her 80s. I think the years of sedentary living and poor diet have finally taken their toll. I suggested she think about a personal trainer or nutritionist -- I am sure that won't be happening though. The worst of all of this is that my 12 year old brother seems to be in equally poor condition. He's so terribly overweight and gluttonous and easily worn out from physical activity. My mother swears he "eats healthy and exercises" but I saw him get winded after walking 3 blocks at a brisk pace. I saw him polish off a huge smoothie and a chocolate pastry after just having eaten breakfast. Hard to imagine that at home he's on a strict regimen of physical activity and fresh veggies. I think the problem is that my family doesn't know what it means to eat well and exercise. Sunday night my partner and I were on the verge of yakking from restaurant food. We suggested we make soup and salad at home for dinner. My family agreed to this and requested baked potatoes. I saw them polish off half a tub of margarine and half a bottle of salad dressing with their "healthy" meal. This is what I mean. They think if you eat a vegetable it's automatically good. They don't consider that soaking the vegetable in sauces and oils makes it a lot less "good". About the exercise, they consider walking 1 mile per day a great amount of activity. They should be walking a mile ON THE WAY TO THE GYM, where they will then proceed to run at least another 3 or 4. One mile per day, if they even do that, won't burn up the mass of calories taken in with sauces, butter, cake, cookies, soda and all the other things they're gobbling up. I know trying to tell them all of this will make me sound preachy and self righteous so I keep quiet about it but a hired expert who knows about fitness and nutrition is going to tell them this and it's what they need to hear. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
12:58 pm	Raging My mother called yesterday. I was in the car on my way back from training with my personal trainer. This did not please my mother. She told me that seeing a trainer makes me shallow and narcissistic. I told her she was hardly in a position to judge me considering all of her plastic surgery. She scoffed, as if being fit is a much graver offense than having wrinkles removed. She resorted to her usual "I don't know how you could be *MY* child." Apparently being obese and sedentary makes her morally superior to me. I am some wicked thing that could never have sprung from her saintly loins. She then told me how sad she is that menopause is approaching. "Look on the bright side," I told her "you can safely wear nice white undies every day if you like and no more cramps and lots of birth control-free sex." "You would say that. You just want to be a man. Why don't you go get a sex change and be done with it." If not enjoying cramps, condoms and ruined lingire means I have penis envy then give me a dick I guess. My mother is really upset about the menopause because it means she can't have more babies. She said she was really hoping for another kid and wishes my dad would let her adopt a baby from Africa. Okay, Ms Jolie "Maybe dad wants to retire and go fishing or traveling or whatever it is dads do when they aren't working 80 hours a week to finance braces and fencing lessons and college tuition and such." "I guess people have different things that make them happy." she said in the most disdainful voice she could muster -- which actually means "people who can find joy in anything besides child rearing are selfish evil subhumans." So just to sum it up, everyone is selfish, vain, and shallow, except for my mother. I, in particular, am a vile, wannabe-male, narcissist. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
4:08 pm	Invasion from planet crazy My parents are coming to visit! My mother called me the other night to tell me that she, my brother and my father plan to visit me in a couple of weeks. First she wanted help booking her plane tickets online. She found a cheap airfare that flew into Dulles airport and insisted on that flight. Dulles airport is an airport outside DC and over an hour away from my home in Baltimore. I found her fairly cheap airfares to the Baltimore airport but none quite as cheap as the flight into Dulles. I pointed out that I have a small compact car and that the airport she was insisting on was very very far away and that she would be very unhappy squished into said compact car for over an hour with my father and brother. "I'll rent a car" she suggested. Wouldn't that nullify those savings she got from taking this pain in the ass flight she insisted on? Besides I don't see my folks navigating from the burbs of DC to downtown Baltimore, let alone trying to park their rental vehicle in a small parallel parking spot with cars whizzing by. My mother then proceeded to throw a fit because row 1 of the airplane seats were all taken (big surprise). Since my parents never travel the concept of not getting exactly what you want all the damn time is a new concept for them. I tried to tell her that if she was going to insist on more room she'd need to upgrade to first class. Of course that suggestion was dismissed. It's weird the things my parents can be cheap about, considering how ostentatious they are most of the time. Later the same evening my father called to talk to my partner. He wanted my sweetie to draw up a detailed itinerary of their visit. My dad is rarely heard from. He's usually a non-entity, so this somewhat obnoxious request sort of surprised me. I am also not sure why he thought my partner was the one to ask for this. My father also insisted that there be a fishing expedition during his visit. FISHING?! Who the hell goes fishing in downtown Baltimore? I don't live in a cabin on the lake, you know. I wonder if I can satisfy him with a nice seafood restaurant instead. My parents are going to drive me insane. I'll have great blog entries but I suspect my tongue will bleed all weekend from biting it. I recently gave up my vodka swilling ways in favor of improving my overall well-being. I suspect that stint will come to a sharp close the weekend of my parents' stay. Pass the Gray Goose. P.S. To all my real life friends who enjoy insane tales about my mother. I know she's a bit of a celebrity in my world and lots of you want to meet her. I am not sure I'm going to be able to make that happen, but even if I could, I think you'd be disappointed. She saves her insanity for relatives and close family friends only. My partner thought she was delightful and that I was unnecessarily harsh in my comments about her the first time I introduced them. My honey eventually came to see my side of things though, as more time with Mommie Dearest was spent and out came the crazy. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 14th, 2006
10:59 am	Fencing So my 12 year old brother is taking fencing lessons. Such is life in over-privileged Florida. Not that my mother is satisfied. "The children in your brother's fencing class are wild. I can't believe they let them run around with swords." "It IS a fencing class, Mom" "Well I don't think their instructor has any control over those little hooligans. I think they should be KICKED OUT of the class." "ok" "and I intend to call and complain about this!" "good luck" "I don't want your brother getting stabbed." Hmm, then perhaps you shouldn't take him to a FENCING class. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
10:55 am	Magic Last night on the phone with mom... MOTHER: I think that Heidi Klum looks great for having just had a baby. ME: Well she probably worked with a trainer and nutritionist during and after giving birth MOTHER: I don't know about that. ME: So she just has magic fairy dust that makes her look perfect after she squeezes out a kid then? MOTHER: I think some people are just lucky. ME: I guess, in that they can afford nutritionists and personal trainers. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 13th, 2006
4:48 pm	Pot Meet Kettle In a recent phone chat my mother asked what I've been up to. I replied with the usual "not much -- art projects, work, hanging out with friends, going to the gym -- the usual." My mother replied, "I don't see what you need with the gym." "I want to look nice and be in good shape," I said. "And then what?" "What do you mean?" "What is the point of it? What do you need that for? Don't you think there are more imporant things in life than being pretty?" This seemed like a bizarre question coming from a woman so fixated on "looking nice" that she made herself ill from so many cosmetic surgery procedures. I'd normally brush of this sort of insanity but this time I couldn't resist. "That's rich, coming from you." I shot back. "Do you even know how many face lifts and nose jobs and collagen shots you've had? At least going to the gym is good for me and probably won't give me a nasty rashy bacterial infection." "I guess you're right" she conceded. Amazing. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 5th, 2006
1:24 am	Muscleheads and Other Creeps Today's entry is only going to be loosely related to mom since there isn't much news there. My mother has stopped calling 5 times a day. I found a branch of the Mayo Clinic in northern Florida that has treated what my mother thinks she has. She was overjoyed to learn that they had appointments available so I think she is looking forward to that. She is also very happy that she doesn't have to get on a plane to see these doctors. I really hope they know how to fix her problem. My brother's birthday was this past week. He turned 26. I called him to wish him a happy birthday. I asked him if our mother called. He said she had. I said "well it's nice to know she remembers some people's birthdays." He replied, "I am not entirely sure she remembered, when she called she said 'I think it's your birthday, is it?'" I expressed my disgust. My brother told me he thinks our mother is senile. I said I think she just enjoys being difficult. Any way... for all the bitching I've done about my mother's stupid fixation with cosmetic surgery, I have to confess the vanity gene did not skip a generation. My mother may obsess over every wrinkle and crease, but I on the other hand, will take crows feet and laugh lines over love handles and thunder thighs any day of the week. Because I am absurdly vain I weigh myself regularly and recently I noticed I was putting on a few pounds. Since I find gaining weight completely unacceptable, I started hitting the gym, heavily. Now that I practically live there, I have noticed a colorful array of characters that also inhabit my new home away from home. The Muscleheads These beefcakes probably couldn't run a mile if a bear was chasing them. I see them strutting around the joint with their tank tops and weight belts. I have started to suspect they are using their gym membership for air conditioning and cable TV access. I have yet to see them break a sweat. I bet they think they are in amazing shape but they've never set foot on a cycle or treadmill. I hadn't paid much attention to these hulks until they started horning in on my time at the gym. I keep unusual hours since I work from home. I wake up later and go to bed much later than most normal people. I tend to work out at lunch time and late at night. (Thank goodness for 24 hour gym access.) The way I see it, lunch time is fair game for the other gym-going folk. I accept that there are going to be some other people there. The night shift on the other hand is my time and when I find muscleheads chilling out watching TV during my time I want to throttle them. I mean at 1am on a Friday night there shouldn't be a soul in the gym. I should be able to futz with the weight machines like I don't know what I'm doing and sing out loud with my MP3 player. Can't these guys get a date or just get a life? I know, I know, you might ask yourself why I don't get a life. The thing is my partner is a full time student and he always has so much homework that my options are go out without him (which isn't all that much fun), sit home and watch TV, or give myself a good ass kicking at the gym. Might as well be productive. The muscleheads tune every TV in the gym to ESPN. There are 4 TVs. How much ESPN in stereo do they need and what's on ESPN in the wee hours of the morning that's so compelling? The Barbies I can respect these babes, a lot of them are older than me and could totally kick my ass. They're gorgeous well-chisled pieces of art. They strut around the gym during lunch hour in their spandex garb giving the elliptical machines what for. These women can sprint for an hour without pause. Since the gym is boring I enjoy making up stories about what their lives are probably like. I imagine some are trophy wives, kept women married to old geezers and under pressure to stay foxy so their spouses don't run off with 19 year olds. I bet a few of them are secretly boning their UPS guy or something. I like to imagine that a few of them are ball busting corporate types who challege male co-workers to arm wrestle when they get tipsy at the office Christmas party. I bet they always win. The Heffers The majority of the people who go to my gym are already in very good shape and have clearly been working out consistently for years. Every once in a while a hopeless hefty housewife will waddle into the gym to get a membership. I've never seen the same one in there twice so I suspect they don't stick with their get-fit plans for long. It's sort of depressing watching them try to work out. They can barely move the stairmaster let alone give it the beating the barbies around them are serving up. I can see why they get discouraged. The Staff The gym is staffed by youngish fit people -- mostly barbies and muscleheads, although I have at least seen the muscleheads who work there get on the treadmills. There is one guy who works there that totally creeps me out though. He is a personal trainer though I've never seen him train any one. He looks like a high school gym teacher and I've never seen him work out at all. He just skulks around the room like a disgruntled PE teacher presiding over lazy students. I've never seen him smile. I suspect he is thinking "Fucking yuppies! These people should work out harder and run faster and stop drinking so much from their water bottles like a bunch of babies." I bet he is a retired military guy. I imagine that when he trains people he says things like "IN THE ARMY WE DID NOT GET BREAKS FOR WATER. WE RAN 15 MILES A DAY, UPHILL! DROP AND GIVE ME 20, WORM." I doubt I'd seek his help if he were the last trainer on earth. A lot of people will tell you that obesity is genetic and that they can't help being fat. I disagree. My mother is fat -- she has been as long as I can remember. I think my vanity comes out in a fixation with my physique because of my mother. Like I mentioned in earlier entries, I never wanted to be a wife or stay at home mommy because my mother wanted that and I saw what a mess that made of her life. Likewise, I think I didn't adopt my mother's exercise and eating habits because I am so driven to be unlike her in any way. I guess I'm not that unlike her, I am willing to go to obsessive lengths to feed my need to feel satisfied with my looks, I just choose different measures. I wasn't a skinny child. In fact, I'm going to confess something totally embarrassing, I had to take a remedial PE class in elementary school. I had been in private school (which didn't have PE class) until like 4th grade -- at which point I insisted my parents let me attend public school with the other children in my neighborhood. When I got there I discovered that years earlier they'd all learned useless skills like how to catch and throw balls and how to dribble. Since I hadn't learned any of that I had to attend a special gym class for slow kids so I could learn these supposedly essential skills. I never really picked them up though and I can't say it's had any effect on my adult life. I didn't get skinny until my teen years. Once I was old enough to really assert some control over what I ate I decided to go vegan. Admittedly, there were a few years there where I wouldn't touch anything but celery and rice cakes but I've developed a healthier diet and fitness regimen since. I'm telling you this to explain what I mean about nature versus nurture. I could have been a fat adult, I was certainly on that track in my early years. It was spite that turned things around for me. Probably not the best motivator but it's made me the fairly happy healthy adult I am now. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 1st, 2006
10:49 am	Constant Ringing I have determined that my phone needs a new feature -- it should be able to automatically turn itself down to its lowest volume when my mother calls and turn itself back to normal when the call ends. My mother called today, 4 times before 10:30 am. Each time she calls I have to keep the phone's volume all the way down and hold the phone 6 inches from my ear. It's constant tantrums when she calls. She is throwing a fit because she cannot get an appointment with the doctor at Johns Hopkins that I found. Their office doesn't return calls or know the doctor's schedule. Today I suggested she try the Mayo Clinic "Where is that?" she asks "They have three locations -- Minnesota, Arizona and one in northern Florida." "Well I can go to the one in Florida" "MOM, you can go to whichever branch has doctors that know how to fix this problem." I say, not bothering to try to mask my disgust. I have really had it with her refusal to get on a damn airplane to get this matter resolved. "Well I could drive to the one in Florida." "Right, well I don't know if that is the branch that has doctors who've treated this before. If you want this fixed you may have to be flexible about where to go." She doesn't like this but I don't care. I am sick of the early morning tantrum throwing wake up calls. I am sick of hearing about her problem that she is making minimal effort to resolve. It is time for her to start being a little more cooperative about the problem and stop being a primadonna. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 27th, 2006
3:42 pm	Denmark or Bust As I've mentioned in previous entries, my mother has been ill. She has been calling me at least 5 times a day and making me insane. She can't find a doctor who knows what is wrong exactly or how to treat her problem. Yesterday she casually mentioned that she had some of lab work sent to a doctor in Copenhagen who said she knows what is wrong with my mother and how to treat it. The Danish doctor also offered to treat my mother. "So why don't you see that doctor?" I asked with exasperation. "Because she is in Denmark" she replies "Uh, huh, so go there" "I cannot go to Denmark, I don't have a passport!" "You could get one," I suggest. "I don't know how" "I will help you get it figured out." "I don't even know if they speak English there" "They do." "How would you know?" "I've been there" "Well I can't sit on the plane for that long." "Mom! You can have some sleeping pills and take a nap and when you wake up you will be there. I will go with you and make sure everything is just fine, alright? You find out when this doctor can see you and I will help you sort out your passport and find a flight and a hotel. I am sick of this already. You have a doctor offering to fix this and you won't go see her because you don't feel like getting on a plane? NO MORE! Just go see that doctor, enough is enough." "Well you don't have to yell at me. I am going to see if I can find a doctor here that can help me first" Great, Mom. Wait another 6 months to find a doctor that can fix this for you. Good plan (Comment on this)